


Eudaemonia

by Bur



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Post-Series, Slice of Life, mild PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 07:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13993839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bur/pseuds/Bur
Summary: Alexsandr never expected to find peace more terrifying than war.





	Eudaemonia

**Author's Note:**

> It appears I've contracted a fluff virus. I hear it's been going around.

Alexsandr never expected to find peace more terrifying than war.  

On an intellectual level, it was absurd.  He no longer spent his days dodging blaster fire or combing through intel knowing if he missed something,  _ anything _ , people he cared for would pay the price.  There were no admirals, grand or otherwise, he had to outwit.  He didn’t see his end in the quiet vacuum of space, or at the behest of a firing squad, or consumed by the exploding reactor of a star destroyer.  He didn’t spend days waiting, helplessly, for word on who survived their missions, and who did not.

How could the lack of that be unsettling?  

And yet…

Even after Alexsandr forced himself to confront the true nature of the Empire - when he realized (no, he’d known for years and willfully ignored it) his life’s work was not that of a peacekeeper, but that of a monster - he had not felt this adrift.  There’d still been that constant to tether his life to. He’d still had war, and Alexsandr knew what to do with war. He knew what to expect from war. People came and went, as did governments. Loyalties. Dreams, ambitions, love, despair - all circled around the constant of wars past, present, and yet to come regardless of the side one was fighting for.

Lira San wasn’t different in that matter - there was no people in the galaxy who didn’t get into it amongst themselves now and then.  It  _ was _ rather low key compared to the grandiose gestures of the Empire in its final years, but, then, little wasn’t.

However, Alexsandr no longer had a place in war.  Even if he’d wanted to involve himself in Lira San’s internal disputes, he was woefully lacking in fluency when it came to all but a couple dialects, and much of the culture eluded him entirely.  There was only so much a man could absorb in four months. Zeb had near as much problem as him, which helped soothe his pride. Lasan’s own culture and language had drifted enough from Lira San’s to prove troublesome in the most unexpected of ways.  More than one misunderstanding had resulted in bar fights.

Alexsandr could admit to himself, in quiet moments like these as he sat in the dewy grass outside their house, just shy of cold enough to frost, those were the times he felt the most comfortable.  Adrenaline rushing through his body, and the slow build of endorphin bliss as his knuckles scraped and his body bruised. The violence of it soothed the part of his mind that kept waiting for something to finally shatter.

Peace was terrifying because it  _ wasn’t _ , and Alexsandr didn’t know what to do with that.

He dug his toes into cold, loamy dirt and leaned back on his hands to look up at the sky as the bright display of the imploded star cluster began to fade with dawn.  His bad leg ached, but not much more than it usually did. The pain was familiar and grounded him.

It was rare he woke and Zeb did not - an unanticipated side effect of the war’s end.  It wasn’t that he never had nightmares during his fight for and then against the Empire, heavens no, but it seemed now he wasn’t experiencing it in waking life his mind had taken it upon itself to make up for the loss in his sleep.  More often than not these days, Alexsandr woke screaming, or lashing out at an enemy that no longer existed. Zeb would rub his back until Alexsandr relaxed enough to lie back down, burying his face in thick fur until the scent of it drove his less pleasant memories away.

Zeb was hardly lacking in his own share of bad dreams, and many of the nights Alexsandr might have slept through were interrupted by a similar, reversed routine.

This night, however, he’d awoken in an unusual quiet.  It had been difficult to slip from their bed without waking Zeb - the lasat was an incorrigible clinger in his sleep - but he’d needed the clear air, the smell of dirt and grass and wet, to drive off the disconnect between his past and his present.  He’d needed the cold night to soothe away the remembered pain of burnt skin.

It wasn’t until he startled at rustle of grass beneath large feet that Alexsandr realized he was no longer alone.  Lira San doors were infuriatingly manual, far too easy to slip in and out of silently. He kept meaning to tie bells to their front and back doors, but somehow it always got away from him.  It was harder to concentrate without clear directives and orders. 

Peace robbed Alexsandr of his mind in subtle ways.  

More frequently than he’d like, he had to remind himself this wasn’t the Empire - he wouldn’t be dishonorably discharged and mocked as damaged goods for post-traumatic stress.  He wasn’t weak. It was similar to his leg, damaged in ways that usually didn’t affect his life until, with unexpected suddenness, it did, giving out beneath him and sending him sprawling into the dirt.  Hopefully with time his mind would settle and he would fall less often.

Zeb sat down beside him with a heavy sigh.  “The bed’s too large without you in it.”

Alexsandr’s lips quirked up in a small smile.  “That’s a bald-faced lie. We sleep practically on top of each other.”

“You know what I mean.”  Zeb’s voice was still rough with sleep in a way that sent shivers down Alexsandr’s spine, reminding him of mornings lazy with pleasure.

“Yes, I do.”

Zeb’s hand was hot through the cloth of Alexsandr’s sweatshirt as he pushed him down to the ground.  His skin pimpled more from the frigid dew even as Zeb’s head laying heavy on his chest spread an emotional warmth through him, followed by a physical one as the lasat draped an arm across his thighs.

After the high of the Empire’s fall left him, Alexsandr became afraid without the war to keep their relationship running hot with tension and the uncertainty of survival he and Zeb would drift apart.  The beats of their shared history were punctuated with violence, cruelty, and death, and he wasn’t sure what they would do in the absence of what brought them together in the first place. with the main source of it gone.  Zeb felt much the same - a confession brought about by a sleepless night and the safety of darkness. It was a relief the both of them were taking this unknown path the same worries.

Peace was terrifying, because it might yet take away the only good thing war had given him.

He scratched gently at the base of Zeb’s ear until his breath evened out into a low rumble.  Zeb wasn’t asleep, their positions were far too exposed to let go quite that much, but he was relaxed.

They stayed laying there long after the sun rose and the dew evaporated around them.

 

***

 

Any time Alexsandr went to take a trip into the small town of Piraun on his own, Zeb would spend at least five minutes marking him.  He ran his bearded cheeks across Alexsandr’s exposed neck and face, expressing his scent glands and probably making it so any lasat within a kilometer radius could smell who his mate was.

It wasn’t as if this only started once they took up residence on Lira San, but now Zeb was around his own species he behaved like he felt he had competition, as if Alexsandr could ever find his head turned by a shinier coat of fur or whatever it was lasat found most attractive about each other.

All told, while he found the whole ordeal ridiculous, he was also undeniably charmed Zeb thought another lasat would think he was worth poaching.

The routine followed a script of sorts.

“You are aware, dear, half of town still believes I have mange?” Alexsandr asked as Zeb tilted his head back to expose more of his neck.  “Vendors pull out masks when I go to their stalls. They put on gloves, too, and wipe down anything I’ve touched.” He’d taken to touching quite a lot of produce just to watch the panic that ensued.  Their behavior was a little trying, but Alexsandr could manage for now. He’d endured far worse than paranoid fruit sellers.

“One day they’ll notice my fur ain’t falling out,” Zeb answered, like disease was the only thing standing between Alexsandr and a lasat harem.

“The other half think I have some genetic deformity.  It is beyond their imagination a species devoid fur or scales could possibly exist in the whole of the galaxy.”  Some of those would try to give him pity discounts, which Alexsandr never took even when they were short on money.  He still had his pride.

Zeb tilted Alexsandr’s head the other way and pressed his face into the crook of his neck.  “Narrow-minded, the lot of ‘em, but they’ll get used to it.”

“The ‘lot of ‘em’ all agree that you are a pervert for taking up with me.”

Zeb looked up at him with his big, green eyes.  “They actually say that to your face?”

Alexsandr smirked.  “They underestimate how much of your language I’ve learned.”  He was quite up to date on the gossip thanks to that. Once in intel, always in intel.  His past self would be mortified he was now using his talents to keep track of lasat social alliances and dalliances instead of Imperial poli-military ones.

“Karabast,” Zeb swore with a breathy laugh.  “Every time I think I can’t love you more.”

Every time.

But Alexsandr couldn’t scent Zeb in return.  There was nothing he could do to mark the lasat as his mate in a fashion that would be understood by everyone else.  He had to trust Zeb in an entirely different way than he’d ever had to before, to keep choosing him over his own species, the way Zeb trusted him for years.  And he did, Alexsandr  _ did _ , but it was terrifying to be so vulnerable.

 

***

 

Finding a place to stay when they arrived at Lira San was more involved than either of them expected.  For one, credits were worthless on Lira San, so unless they were willing to part with their ship, they were flat-out broke.  For another, Chava and Gron travelled the planet, so Alexsandr and Zeb couldn’t simply live where they lived. Luckily, the older lasat mentioned a couple areas that sounded promising to her - quiet, friendly, and  _ green _ .  When Piraun offered a dilapidated property on their outskirts on the condition it be repaired and maintained, they took it for the bargain it was.

Piraun had likely made the offer expecting the prestige and additional tourism generated by an Honor Guard from an ancient civilization.  Instead, they got a pervert and his mangy offworlder mate. The area  _ was _ rather rural, so Alexsandr supposed at the least they were spicing things up.

Alexsandr was taking measurements for a new porch railing he wanted to install when he heard a giggle behind him.  He turned on instinct, reaching for a sidearm he no longer carried, and felt sick when he saw a pair of lasat cubs peering at him from over a yellowberry bush just starting to bud with the early spring.

Peace was terrifying, because Alexsandr had the instincts for war.  He wasn’t  _ safe _ .  The cubs had no idea the danger they put themselves in sneaking up on him.   _ Especially _ him.

He pushed down the nausea, and waved over at them while taking a seat on the edge of the porch.  “You spy at me?” he asked, in his own pidgin mash of Lasan and the local dialect.

Zeb had been very patient with his lessons the past seven years.  Alexsandr never quite got the hang of the ‘r’s, however Zeb seemed to get a kick out of it so that was all right.  So, he  _ could _ speak more properly, but, to be honest, he had more fun this way.  He was considering adding more reduplication, but thought the childishness of it might go a bit far.  The goal was to be underestimated, not dismissed entirely. Better to keep his game simple.

One cub answered “No!” as the other said “Yes!”  They looked at each other, oversized ears they had yet to grow into moving in a complicated language of their own.  Up, back, left ear down, back again. The cubs looked back at him. “Yes!” they chorused in unison.

He wondered if he should pay more attention to Zeb’s ears.  He got the gist of it, but perhaps there was something more nuanced going on he was missing.

“Why?” he asked, resting an elbow on his thigh and his chin in his hand.  He leaned forward, and a lock of hair slipped from behind his ear to hang in front of his shoulder.  He’d been meaning to cut it for a while, but past precedent meant when he did Zeb would sulk for a week straight.  To be entirely truthful, though, he got a bit of a thrill keeping it so far outside regulation.

The cubs looked at each other, did their ear talk again, and the larger of the two spoke.  “Our friends said a furless beast moved into the haunted house while we were away at school,” she said.

Well, that was unflattering.  “No beast,” he said and pointed to himself.  “My call Kallus.” He wasn’t particularly fond of using that name anymore, but it was much easier for the Lira San lasat to remember than ‘Alexsandr’.  He pointed back at the house behind him. “‘Haunted’?” he asked, for clarification. “Spirit house?”

The smaller cub’s blue eyes grew wide.  “A whole family was murdered in there!” He clicked his claws together nervously.  “Mama says they can’t be reborn. They’re too sad to leave and become one with Ashla.”

“Huh.”  Well, that went towards explaining why the house was such a bargain.  A load of nonsense, of course, but nonsense that worked in Zeb’s and his favor at least.  “No spirit,” he said. “Just broken house.”

The cubs slowly moved in front of the yellowberry bush.  “Really?” the girl cub asked.

“Really really,” Alexsandr said, and the cubs laughed as he mangled the ‘r’s.  Just a broken house and a couple broken people, but all of them were getting a little less so by the day.

 

***

 

After the two boarding school cubs visited, Alexsandr and Zeb’s property became lousy with them.  Alexsandr hoped the thrill of a new hangout quickly dissipated because, quite frankly, it was beginning to put a dampener on the best part of having moved far away from the Core Worlds.

Zeb’s rough tongue moved slowly down Alexsandr’s chest, but, as he arched his back off the bed to press against him, he noticed three sets of jewel-toned eyes peering in through the bedroom window.  “ _ Karabast, _ ” he cursed meaningfully and tugged on Zeb’s ear to get his attention.  “We forgot to close the blinds again.”

“Nice thing about ships,” Zeb growled as he pushed himself up onto his hands.  “Don’t gotta worry about voyeurs.”

“Though the thin walls were occasionally an issue,” Alexsandr recalled.

“Only with politicians.  Remarkably prudish sort for always being the center of scandals.”

“Quite,” Alexsandr agreed as he edged out of the bed, grabbing a pillow to block the view of what would surely become the latest talk of the town.  He made certain to avoid eye contact with the cubs as he closed the blinds. Better to not reward such rudeness with attention. “Honestly, they behave like they never encounter interspecies couples, which is a kriffing lie given the establishments I  _ know _ they frequent.”

“I hope you kept records.  Never know when that kind of blackmail will come in handy,” Zeb said as he rolled onto his back and reached out with his foot to pull Alexsandr back to bed.

“Quite,” Alexsandr agreed again as he pushed Zeb onto his back and settled between his well-muscled thighs.

A couple hours later, limbs loose and heads fuzzy from a post-coital nap, Alexsandr and Zeb walked into the kitchen to find five cubs gathered around their table.  None were the original two, who’d long since returned to school.

Zeb rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.  “Ashla, give me strength.”

“I’m setting up perimeter alarms this week,” Alexsandr grumbled in Basic.  “I don’t know how I’ll get hold of all the parts, but it’s going to happen.”

“Every time I think I can’t love you more,” Zeb said with such thick affection it carried across language barriers and caused all the cubs to pull a face.

 

***

 

An unexpected, though not unwelcome, side effect of becoming the center of cub gossip mills was an increase in how well some of the adult lasat treated him.  There was still caution there, and the occasional comment made that had him itching to start a brawl, but the cubs had done a good amount of work towards giving him personhood in the eyes of their parents.  Why the little terrors took a shine to him Alexsandr had no idea. He was a grouch, and always made a show of complaining bitterly when they dragged him into their games. Maybe lasat as a species had poor taste.

If the cubs knew what he’d done, if they knew how often his first thought was to reach for a weapon… Lira San didn’t have a warrior culture as strong as Lasan.  They wouldn’t understand, and he wouldn’t be a monster just for his past, Alexsandr would be a monster for his present as well.

As always, Zeb had come to the rescue of his soul when he expressed his doubts.  “Why d’you think I’ve stopped carrying my bo-rifle around?” he’d said, and didn’t that say it all.

With his training, Alexsandr was never truly without a weapon.  He had his body, and he could improvise well enough with what was at hand.  However, he couldn’t deny the constant low-key anxiety he at felt being unarmed.

He looked longingly at a pair of hunting knives with beautiful bone handles.  The edges of the blades shone in the sun like a  _ dream _ .  He sighed and reached out to run his finger down the fuller of one knife.

“Good eye, Furless,” Vendor Keset said.

Alexsandr sighed again, for an entirely different reason.  Considering his first designation from her was ‘Mange Carrier’, merely ‘Furless’ was quite the upgrade, but still.  At this rate the townsfolk might start calling him by name around the time Zeb and he pulled their repurposed Imperial shuttle out of storage.  

He was suddenly quite tired of the act he’d been putting on.  “Mm,” he agreed, and continued in correct, if heavily accented, Lasan, “However, I’m not well trained with short blades.  They’d be wasted on me.” Vendor Keset gaped at him, and Alexsandr drew upon all his experience to keep his face expressionless.  “Is something the matter?” he asked.

“No,” she shook her head, not taking her eyes off him.  “Not at all.”

Word got around faster than a greased loth-cat about Furless’s newfound eloquence, which had the unexpected and  _ entirely _ unwelcome side effect of not getting home until sunset.

“I felt like an animal being told to do tricks,” he told Zeb while the lasat basted a fish he’d caught and brought in for supper.  Alexsandr had the pieces of his blaster dismantled and strewn across the table as he channeled his irritation into maintenance, something even more important now the blaster had fallen into disuse.  It wouldn’t do to be stuck in a crisis only for some component or other to have unexpectedly degraded in the meantime.

“So why’d you let on you had a brain inside that beautiful head of yours?  Seems obvious to me everyone’d get all curious about it and want a new look at you.”

Alexsandr took a moment to arrange his thoughts properly.  “I think I was finally ready for it,” he said. “I was overwhelmed when we first arrived.  Between all the new experiences and the old ones, I suppose I felt the need to put a barrier around myself.  Besides,” he continued with a smile, “those brats expanded my social circle to the point where it’s more irritating than rewarding to keep the game going.”  He checked one more fuse before starting to reassemble the blaster as Zeb plated the fish on a bed of still steaming roots. Out of habit, Alexsandr moved to slot the blaster in a thigh holster that was no longer there before placing it in its case instead, and setting it on the wooden floor.

Zeb put the platter in the middle of the table and leaned over to press his forehead to Alexsandr’s.  “Try not to charm ‘em too much.”

“No promises, dear.  Now there’s no language barrier I will use all the charm I can muster to get a good bargain.”  He reached up to run the backs of his nails down Zeb’s cheeks. “Summer will be here soon. I’ll burn and peel, and the only topic of conversation will be ‘the furless one has a new disease!’.  If I’ve managed to accidentally seduce someone with my wit between then and now, that should take care of it.”

“Didn’t get rid of me,” Zeb said, turning his head into one of Alexsandr’s hands.  That had been a memorable experience as none of the other members of the  _ Ghost _ crew were prone to sunburn.  He’d also learned lotion was a devil to get out of lasat fur.

“Yes, well.  I believe it’s already been established that you’re a pervert.”

Zeb laughed deep in his throat.  “Still, can’t be too careful. I’ll have to be extra thorough marking you from now on.”

Alexsandr shivered so hard he bit his lip.  “No time like the present,” he said, already feeling breathless.

They ate their supper cold that night.

 

***

 

Saying Zeb and Alexsandr were having a bad day would be a bit of an understatement.  They were having a  _ rotten _ day, one that would no doubt lead to a string of sleepless nights until the both of them passed out somewhere inadvisable out of sheer exhaustion.

With the spring turning to summer, Zeb acquired steady work passing on his unique style of close quarters combat to a small set of aggressive lasat who’d travelled in for the privilege of being knocked around by him.  Alexsandr helped out, volunteering himself as a sparring partner so the students could test themselves against someone with a different practice. It was enjoyable, getting to test his speed and strength against someone other than Zeb.  They knew each other too well at this point, and it was clear during his first couple of spars that he’d grown uncomfortably reliant on Zeb’s tells.

If it was also enjoyable letting the strutting lasat barely into adulthood learn the hard way not to underestimate a smaller opponent with a bad leg, well, that was between him and Zeb.  As were the increased amount of bites and bruises Zeb left showing his appreciation for the display.

The more visible bruising set off another chain of diseased-furless-offworlder rumors, especially once they started turning colors, but what didn’t.

Bruises were currently the least of his concern.

It was just a fire, that’s all.  Someone had probably left a stove on, or forgot about a candle.  Alexsandr supposed it could be arson, but it wasn’t his job to investigate.  Point was, it was just a house fire, but it must have spread to the home’s fuel cell.  The sound of the explosion briefly whited out his mind with panic, but this at least was one trigger he’d had far too much practice desensitizing himself to.  Any observers would’ve only seen a flinch, and only because it’d been so long. 

Zeb held his classes out in open air.  It was good for keeping the hot fur odor from getting overwhelming, but backfired spectacularly in this case. Alexsandr could only figure it was a smell on the breeze that did it, perhaps that of ash and burt fur.  A whine cut itself off in Zeb’s throat, and he was gone.

Alexsandr waved off the students’ questions, after all it wasn’t his story to tell even if he was responsible for a great deal of it, and set off at a lope to search for Zeb.  Wherever he’d gone physically, Zeb likely wouldn’t be there mentally, and, regardless of fault, or guilt, or any manner of loathing, self or otherwise, Alexsandr would be there for his love the same way Zeb always was for him.

He checked their house first.  The rooms, the roof, the storage cellar - all empty.  There was no large, purple body splayed out in the grass, or draped in the branches of the trees large enough to support his weight.  Alexsandr trotted along walking trails, and down speeder paths, and by the time he thought to check the shallow river Zeb preferred for fishing he was sporting a limp the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since the winter months.

And there, upstream, stood Zeb where the water was only deep enough to gently swirl around his ankles.

Alexsandr stayed where he was, telling himself it was to give his leg a brief rest even as he drank in the sight of Zeb, tall and handsome with the high sun shining on his striped fur as he stared off into the middle distance.  It struck Alexsandr dumb, sometimes, his good fortune. Whether or not he deserved it, Zeb had chosen Alexsandr to share his life with. Early in their relationship he’d had to come to terms with it and figure out how to logic his way out of the guilt of being happy, because whether or not Alexsandr deserved Zeb wasn’t the point.  It was never going to be the point, so all he could do was love Zeb as best he could and try to be the man  _ Zeb _ deserved.

He couldn’t stop a pained groan from escaping him as he forced his leg to move again, but, even without the noise and his uneven gait to give him away, Zeb could always smell him.  He already knew Alexsandr was there. 

He sat down on a rock by the river’s edge to take off his boots and strip to his underclothes before stepping carefully into the stream.  The last thing he needed was to cut his foot on a sharp rock while going out to comfort Zeb. If nothing else, it would be  _ undignified _ , because then Zeb would insist on carrying him home and Alexsandr would hardly be in any position to put up more than a token argument.  With cubs still occasionally popping up to spy on them, it could only spell disaster for what reputation he’d managed to scrape together.

He rest his hand on Zeb’s shoulder as he stepped beside him.  He could feel the lasat vibrating with tension as he slowly moved his hand to Zeb’s back and began to rub it in wide circles.  

“You’re gonna get cold,” Zeb said, looking down at him from the corner of his eye.

“I’ve dry clothing waiting for me.”  He found a knot and pressed into it with his thumb, earning a drawn out hiss as he worked it out.  “Besides, I have it on good authority someone will be willing to warm me.”

Zeb turned to face him, so Alexsandr did the same, their feet now parallel to the gentle current.  With a drawn-out sigh Zeb bent down to rest his head against Alexsandr’s shoulder. “It’s nothing,” Zeb lied.

Alexsandr didn’t respond as he wrapped his arms loosely around Zeb’s waist.

“I’ll be fine,’ Zeb continued, holding tightly to Alexsandr in return, claws puncturing through the thin cloth of his tank top and digging painfully into his skin.

That wasn’t a lie, so, “There’s no hurry.  Take your time,” he said, shifting his weight so he could better take Zeb’s.

Naturally, that was when his leg decided this was a bridge too far and chose to betray him.  Not during a fight for his life, not when his pride was on the line in front of the younger lasat, no, it had to be when he was holding his lover as old grief threatened to overwhelm him.  One moment he was sliding his fingers under Zeb’s shirt to dig into thick fur and tight muscles, and the next Alexsandr was flat on his ass, breath knocked out of him by over a hundred kilos of lasat, and very glad he’d thought to leave his clothes on dry land.

Zeb scrambled off of him with a curse, sitting back into the water.  They stared at each other, Zeb’s ears flat against his skull and Alexsandr reflexively running his hand down his shin where the bone had broken nearly a decade ago.

“Well,” Alexsandr said amicably, “not the first time I’ve been wrong.”

Zeb replied by splashing him in the face.

_ Every time I think I can’t love you more,  _ Alexsandr thought as he, former ISB officer and soldier of the Rebellion, got into a water fight like damn child.

 

***

 

“I miss the stars,” Alexsandr confessed as he passed the bottle of yellowberry wine back to Zeb.  “I’m not sure I miss the fighting anymore, but being part of something so large -,” he cut himself off and looked down from the bright display of stars and celestial gases of the night sky and into Zeb’s eyes.  “In comparison Lira San feels isolating. Can’t even get a message out with the interference.”

Zeb was quiet long enough Alexsandr began to grow worried he’d offended him.  He shifted restlessly on their slatted roof where they’d climbed up to stargaze and tried to think of a good way to apologize.  It wasn’t that what he said wasn’t true, but - “I don’t want you to think I’m implying I’m going to take the shuttle out of storage and leave.  Where you go, I go. And if you wish to stay here permanently, there’s no place I’d rather be. You’re my home.”

For most of his life, Alexsandr believed romantic love to be the greatest lie ever told to young men.  Part of it was just the nature of being Coruscanti, where relationships were formed on the basis of business and politics.  Romance was lust turned into liability, and not worth the trouble. As an Imperial officer, he saw his peers’ ambitions brought to their knees through the precision application of charm and the promise of pleasure.  He kept to himself outside of his fellow brothers-in-arms, and, after Onderon, kept his distance from them as well. He supposed that’s why he never noticed the Empire’s lack of loyalty towards its cogs. He was already alone, so how was he to notice he was  _ alone _ ?

But then came the  _ Ghost _ , and the Rebellion, and  _ Zeb _ , and how could he have known at forty he’d find what the fuss was all about.  It would be unfair it took half a lifetime, except it was a miracle he’d gotten the chance at all.

Zeb scratched the back of his head.  “I was kinda thinking the same, but I didn’t want to say anything.  Being here’s been good for you, Kal.” His mouth spread open in a sharp-toothed grin and he bent over to push their foreheads together.  “You were a total mess when we first came.”

Alexsandr scoffed and rolled his eyes.  “Surely it wasn’t that bad,” he said, though he knew full well it was.  His nerves had been wound so tight from the decades of conflict between the Clone Wars and the fall of the Empire that the very action of relaxing them sent earthquakes through his mental landscape.  He was improving, though. For example, now Zeb and he only interrupted each other’s sleep half the time instead of most of the time. “It’s been good for you as well. For lack of a better phrasing, you seem more lasat.”

“Can’t deny being with ‘em’s been nice, but the longer we’re here the more I find myself thinking…” he trailed off.  

Alexsandr took the hand Zeb wasn’t using to hold the wine with in both his own, and closed his eyes to give Zeb the illusion of space to gather up the right words.

“They’re not my people, you know?” he said after a while.  “Lira San isn’t Lasan, and it can’t be. I’m happy so many lasat are alive here, but it doesn’t do anything to change that  _ my _ home,  _ my _ culture,  _ my _ language, they’re gone forever.”

Alexsandr didn’t say anything, because there wasn’t anything he  _ could _ say.  Zeb was right.

“My family,” Zeb continued, “my  _ real _ family are up there.”  He squeezed one of Alexsandr’s hands.  “Outside you, of course. I miss Hera and Jacen, and Sabine.  Even Chopper.”

“I’m sure a minute in his presence will fix that,” Alexsandr said, opening his eyes again.

“You’re giving him far too much credit.  Twenty seconds tops before that hunk of scrap metal tries to shock me.”

Alexsander sat back so he could take the bottle from Zeb for another pull. Yellowberry wine was one thing he’d definitely miss about Lira San.  They’d have to take a case with them, and then keep it hidden from Sabine. Her slight build belied just how much the woman could hold her drink.  The case would be gone in a night, and all Alexsandr would get from it was a hangover.

Zeb leaned in to chase the taste of the wine into Alexsandr’s mouth.

Lasat didn’t kiss, Alexsandr learned during their time in Lira San.  It wasn’t the way they showed affection naturally. They marked each other, rubbed heads, groomed, and were otherwise quite tactile.

Lasat didn’t kiss, but Zeb  _ did _ , and while Alexsandr supposed it was just one more thing that set Zeb apart from the Lira San lasat, one more way he’d drifted from the Lasan culture he was raised in, he was glad for it.  Zeb took the wine bottle in his foot, freeing both of Alexsandr’s hands to go to Zeb’s face to pull him closer, enjoying the rough slide of Zeb’s tongue against his own. As sharp teeth scraped against his lips, Alexsandr counting his blessings that Zeb had been as open to the human experience as he’d been to the lasat’s own expectations.  

“So,” Alexsandr said as they parted, reaching again for the bottle of wine, “shall we spend the winter renovating the shuttle?”

“Add sound dampeners to the bulkheads,” Zeb continued, nodding.  “Find a way to make the outside look less like an imp ship.”

“She  _ was _ an imp ship.  Best we could do with what we have at hand is more paint, but Sabine would murder us if we botched her work.  Perhaps once we have the credits we can take the girl to a yard and they can tweak her lines a bit.”

“Shame she’s a good ship, else we could just sell her for scrap.”

“Not her fault she was made Imperial,” Alexsandr said, and passed the bottle back to Zeb when he motioned for it.

Zeb knocked Alexsandr’s shoulder with his own.  “Nah, I suppose not.”

The minutes passed in comfortable silence until, “I miss caf.”

“ _ Yes _ .”

 

***

 

Alexsandr would maintain to his dying breath Kerga started it.  Nearly one and a half Lira San years had passed since they arrived, and for most of the residents of Piraun the shine had worn off Zeb and Alexsandr’s ‘eccentricities’.  But there was always  _ one _ .

In Piraun that  _ one _ was Kerga, so logic followed she started it.  He absolutely did  _ not  _ lose his temper.

“All I’m saying,” Kerga said while gesturing with a wooden cup filled with a grain alcohol Alexsandr would call whiskey, but the Lira San lasat called  _ poru _ , “is my sister is a much better match.  She’s still of cub bearing age,  _ and _ she isn’t,” Kerga’s eyes glanced over the darkened freckles that ran across the bridge of his nose, “ _ spotted _ .”

Alexsandr wished he’d never learned that particular facet of lasat attraction.  Not only was his lack of body hair brought up against his character, but he was  _ spotted _ .  Ashla forbid.

Alexsandr also wished he had more ammunition against Kerga.  Her family had a reputation for charity, and she herself was considered Piraun’s best weaver  _ and _ second best knife fighter after her brother.  The sister in question travelled a great deal for her business, a self-made lasat with, according to Kerga, the kind of stripes males would fight to the death over.  The two of them were well liked, community oriented, ambitious, and apparently attractive. Kerga’s failings appeared to be a lack of listening skills and the inability to accept Zeb was in a fulfilling long-term relationship.

He was far too tired from upgrading the ship’s bulkhead paneling for this.  All Alexsandr wanted was a drink at Ghovo’s Taproom, and then, when Zeb came to join him, another drink.  Instead, he got sitting at the bar’s stone countertop with Kerga. He let out a slow breath through his nose.  “As I’ve been telling you for the past two seasons,  _ no _ .  He’s my  _ mate _ , Kerga.  You can’t possibly have missed that.”

“On you, perhaps,” Kerga said slyly, “but as far as I can tell  _ he’s  _ up for the taking.”

All right, so he may have lost his temper.

The fight was fairly evenly matched at first.  What Alexsandr lacked in youth and raw power he made up for in experience, and his spars with Zeb’s students had done well keeping his edges honed.  Kerga was at least a decade younger than him, if not two, and she was more than willing to use every bit of her natural strength against him. He appreciated Kerga thought he was worth the effort.

Tables and chairs were quickly pushed aside to make a ring of sorts and Alexsandr could hear bets being made as the end of a claw clipped his cheek.   She was  _ fast, _ but she didn’t know what it meant to fight for her life.  Kerga was fighting for her pride, but Alexsandr never fought for anything less than his survival.  He worked to draw out the fight and wear her down, deflecting her blows and using her larger bulk against her.  That kind of technique never worked against Zeb, but against these lasat who’d known nothing but peace? He could make them go in circles until they collapsed and be fresh for another fight.

Still, he had to admit she had talent, and Alexsandr’s blood sang as the fight dragged on.  Once Kerga’s endurance began to flag and she slowed he let it turned into a proper barroom brawl.  Bruises built up on his ribs, his nose made a whistling noise from a lucky blow, his knuckles scraped raw on rough fur, and his leg was never going to forgive him, but a grin spread wide across his face.

Much to his surprise, Kerga returned his grin in kind, blood dripping from split lips and an abrasion on her chin.  She greatly favored one leg herself after being thrown into a table, and he thought one of her fingers was broken from the way her left hand wasn’t curling into a fist properly.

Next thing was, one very lucky lasat was collecting quite a bit of money as Alexsandr and Kerga stumbled back to the bar to buy each other fresh drinks.

By the time Zeb arrived, they were on their second round and Alexsandr was telling her about when Zeb and he crashed on Bahryn.  Alexsandr waved him over. “You missed all the fun, dear,” he said, passing Zeb his nearly full cup of  _ poru _ .  

“I always miss all the fun,” Zeb grumbled as, without missing a beat, he reached over and set Alexsandr’s nose with his thick fingers.

“ _ Blast!” _

It figured Alexsandr’s first friend on Lira San would be the one who broke his nose.

***

Their ship had an infestation.

Alexsandr knocked against the ceiling with the end of his broom.  “Skag! What have I told you about crawling in the vents!” Honestly.

Skag, the little blue-eyed asshole, stuck his head out just enough to bare his needle-sharp at Alexsandr before skuttling off to Ashla knew where.

He turned to look at where Zeb was checking the insulation on a thick rope of cables that ran under the floor and trying desperately not to burst out laughing.  “If he takes a piss somewhere, it’s up to you to rub his nose in it and clean it up,” Alexsandr said, before returning to cleaning up dust and detritus stirred from replacing a few of their bunk’s door mechanisms that had decided rusting was the way to go.  Their shuttle must’ve been from a later run, because the yards would’ve  _ never _ cut corners like this when Alexsandr was part of the Empire.

A giggle came from behind him, but by the time Alexsandr turned around there was nothing to be seen but some lilac dander floating in the air.  “How many does that make?” he asked, switching to Basic. “By my count there’s four of these brats running around in here.”

“Five,” Zeb corrected, also in Basic.  “There’s one in the crawlspace below us trying to pretend she’s bein’ all sneaky, but she’s ruining it with curry breath.”

Alexsandr’s eyebrows raised high.  “I didn’t realize your sense of smell was quite that strong.”

Zeb scowled, “It’s not, but her breath is.”

All things considered, there wasn’t  _ that _ much work Zeb and Alexsandr had to put into their shuttle to make her space worthy since she’d only been mothballed for just over a galactic year, but once one screw was found with rust, they’d had to go over the entire ship for peace of mind.  Good thing too, given the door situation. It would’ve remained working for another month, tops, before shorting out or locking shut in no doubt the most embarrassing circumstances possible.

Where they got stuck was personalizing the ship.  The outside was fine - most of it’d been painted over by Sabine, and so was entirely beyond reproach.  

The inside, however, was a different story.  Neither Zeb nor Alexsandr were prone to owning much.  Zeb, because having near enough everything destroyed once lent itself to a certain frugality; Alexsandr, because the Empire didn’t encourage the kind of growth that resulted in displays of personality.  Old habits were hard to break, so between the two of them they still didn’t have much more than clothing, a couple blasters, the bag of Lasan dust, and a bo-rifle. 

It was another thing about traveling under their care that had sent politicians into a tizzy, not that it bothered either Zeb or Alexsandr.  He supposed it was the shock between the vibrant outside and the stark, ascetic interior that did it.

“Maybe Kerga has a tapestry she wants to be rid of we can tack to the hull,” Alexsandr suggested later after they’d shooed away the cubs and sealed the ship closed for the night.  The younger lasat and he had met regularly for drinks since their fight. He’d thought there’d be hard feelings when she showed up with her fingers splinted, after all her income came from her hands, but it seemed his bruised and swollen face made up for it.

Alexsandr had to find a better way to make friends with lasat than breaking parts of his body.

“Couldn’t hurt to ask,” Zeb said.  “Sabine will go into shock.”

He leaned against Zeb as they walked the short distance to their house from the fallow field where they’d parked the shuttle, much to the consternation of half of Piraun.  “To think, it only took six years for us to get around to decorating.”

 

***

 

Peace was terrifying, because it was fragile.

“Surely things haven’t gone pear-shaped already,” Alexsandr went on, voice growing louder as he continued.  “It hasn’t been two years yet. The new government can’t have mucked things up that quicky.”

Zeb just looked at him.

“Oh, hell.”  Alexsandr raked his fingers through his hair.  The cockpit seemed to grow smaller around him and the lights from their preliminary systems check blurred.

Zeb took Alexsandr’s hand and pulled him from the cockpit to their Imperial shuttle’s loading ramp, though Alexandr hardly even noticed until the morning breeze brushed against his face.  “Slow breaths, Kal.”

Alexsandr leaned against Zeb and tried to match the rise and fall of his chest to Zeb’s.  After a while bird song filtered into his hearing, and he noticed sometime in there Zeb’s arms had wrapped around him, tucking him close.  The sun was higher in the sky than he thought it should be. “That was unexpected,” he said, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“You haven’t panicked like that in months,” Zeb said.

“I’m not even sure why.  Whether or not a New Republic exists is in the hands of politicians and diplomats, not old soldiers like us.  Whatever has occurred in our absence would be the same if we were there.”

“Sounds like a good cause for panic to me,” Zeb quipped.

Alexsandr rolled his eyes as he pushed back, leaving his hands resting on Zeb’s chest so he wouldn’t have to see them shake.  “Yes, well. All the more reason to keep on schedule. Rip the bacta strip right off, and we can have a laugh at my pessimism.”

Zeb bared his fangs in a mischievous smile.  “I’m going to tell on you to General Organa. Break her heart, knowing one of her rebels is doubting her like that.”

The blood rushed from Alexsandr’s face and then rushed right back in.  “Oh, no. No, no, no. I still can’t look that woman in the eye.”

Zeb leered at him.  “I’m sure we’re not the only ones who were creative about keeping warm on Hoth.  Or the only ones who forgot to lock the supply room door.”

“That’s _ entirely _ beside the point.”  The point was Zeb distracting him, derailing his thoughts entirely and grounding him back into the present.  “I’m all right, now,” he said, lifting his hands from Zeb’s chest.

Zeb cupped his face in one large hand and ran his thumb over the short hair of Alexsandr’s beard.    “Want to take a break? The systems check will keep.”

Sometimes he had to remind himself this wasn’t the Empire, and it was all right to take care of himself.  It was easier with Zeb watching him with open concern and enough understanding Alexandr wasn’t sure what to do with it.  “Every time I think I can’t love you more.”

 

***

 

Alexsandr’s breath caught in his throat once the shuttle broke Lira San’s atmosphere and they were left, beautiful planet spinning below, and the softly glowing gases of the imploded star spread out before them.

“You really missed it, huh?”  Zeb reached over to run a knuckle across Alexsandr’s cheek.  It came away wet.

Alexsandr swallowed thickly.  “I suppose I did,” he said. He reached over and placed his hand on Zeb’s to stop him from keying in the hyperspace coordinates for Lothal.  “Last chance. If you want to stay, I und-”

“You’re my home,” Zeb interrupted.  “Where you go, I go.” He turned his hand around so their palms brushed.  “I want to want to stay, if that makes any sense, but I don’t.”

Alexsandr leaned over to rest their shoulders together.  “I also wanted to want to stay,” he said, “but I’d say we gave being landed a good try.”

“Turns out it’s not for everyone,” Zeb agreed.

Alexsandr let go of Zeb’s hand.  “Let’s go pay our family a surprise visit.”

Zeb finished putting in the coordinates and, for the first time since he was a boy, Alexsandr marveled at the stars elongating into the blue tunnel of hyperspace. 

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [really cute fanart](https://brorifles.tumblr.com/post/174986478128/art-for-eudaemonia-by-bur-link) by Bro-Rifles. Thank you so much!


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